3G iPhone US Patent - Embedded Flash and Quicktime, Video Camera, Conferencing and more

By Aaron Besson at 3 June, 2008, 12:23 pm

My good friend Ryan called this morning to bounce some 3G iPhone questions around and he brought up that he had seen Flash Player mentioned in the 371 page US Patent Application for the new 3G iPhone.

At the moment I didn’t really pay much attention to it as I was up to my you know what in some work, but now that it is close to lunch I took a couple minutes to search through the document and I came across some Interesting stuff. Flash, WMP, Quicktime, Video Camera, GPS (that has been well documented in the past), Video Chat, Blog and more, I’ll just touch on a couple of them for now.

Apple Online Store

Flash is first mentioned here:

“[0778]FIGS. 40A-40F illustrate exemplary user interfaces for playing an item of inline multimedia content in accordance with some embodiments.

[0779]In some embodiments, user interfaces 4000A-4000F include the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof: [0780]402, 404, 406, 3902, 3906, 3910, 3912, 3918, 3920, 3922, as described above; [0781]inline multimedia content 4002, such as QuickTime content (4002-1), Windows Media content (4002-2), or Flash content (4002-3); [0782]other types of content 4004 in the structured document”

Then here:

“[0794]A first gesture (e.g., 4028, FIG. 40A) is detected on an item of inline multimedia content (e.g., 4002-1, FIG. 40A) in the displayed portion of the structured electronic document. In some embodiments, the inline multimedia content comprises video and/or audio content. In some embodiments, the content can be played with a QuickTime, Windows Media, or Flash plugin.”

Does this mean that embedded flash (and Quicktime) content will be able to be viewed on the 3G iPhone in Safari? Live Streaming Flash Video is currently used to broadcast content to hundreds of millions of users daily. The company I work for builds Flash Streaming Video CMS’s, so I can personally attest to the fact that it is in high demand and we have built/implemented them for everything form small events to news channels.

This would be a fantastic way to bring live streaming TV via a flash stream to the iPhone. It would work perfectly over 3G and wifi, and would open up the iPhone users to a world of content, dare I say, bigger than YouTube.

With Apple also reinventing .Mac into the rumored Mobile.me it may also offer on demand video in Quicktime format too to 3G iPhone users. So you can quickly and easily share and watch your Quicktime videos that are either online or on your Mac.

Apple Online Store

Speaking of Video

[0112]The device 100 may also include one or more optical sensors 164. FIGS. 1A and 1B show an optical sensor coupled to an optical sensor controller 158 in I/O subsystem 106. The optical sensor 164 may include charge-coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) phototransistors. The optical sensor 164 receives light from the environment, projected through one or more lens, and converts the light to data representing an image. In conjunction with an imaging module 143 (also called a camera module), the optical sensor 164 may capture still images or video. In some embodiments, an optical sensor is located on the back of the device 100, opposite the touch screen display 112 on the front of the device, so that the touch screen display may be used as a viewfinder for either still and/or video image acquisition. In some embodiments, an optical sensor is located on the front of the device so that the user’s image may be obtained for videoconferencing while the user views the other video conference participants on the touch screen display. In some embodiments, the position of the optical sensor 164 can be changed by the user (e.g., by rotating the lens and the sensor in the device housing) so that a single optical sensor 164 may be used along with the touch screen display for both video conferencing and still and/or video image acquisition.

That quote form the US Patent Application, along with the diagram which shows item 164 mentioned, clearly indicates that a front facing camera will be present for video conferencing along with the ability for the camera on the back on the iPhone to record Video.

Again these added features all make sense, and will all work quite nicely with the new Mobile.me service Apple is rumored to be launching soon. Users will be able to record videos with their iPhone, upload them to their profile/blog (yes you see the blog icon there on the patent diagram submitted by Apple), share it with friends and access them from anywhere.

I can’t wait to see what is really delivered next week at the WWDC 2008.




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Categories : 3G iPhone | Rumors | iPhone

Comments
Richard June 3, 2008

Dude, read this again! it says that the front and back camera’s are the same and can be rotated within the phone!

In some embodiments, the position of the optical sensor 164 can be changed by the user (e.g., by rotating the lens and the sensor in the device housing) so that a single optical sensor 164 may be used along with the touch screen display for both video conferencing and still and/or video image acquisition.

Aaron Besson June 3, 2008

from the diagram, 164 is located in the middle, so maybe the camera will now be in the middle of the back of the 3G iPhone.. i’ll see if i can find a patent drawing showing the back of the phone.

Fernando June 3, 2008

Hi, i need to play live video on my webcam, please email me: frantona @ hotmail . com Thanks

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